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American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

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Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#171

Post by Judgmentality »

nabla9 wrote: post #153
oceanplexian wrote: post #123

I won’t be able to provide information that other people haven’t already but I have encountered one of these “aircraft”. I own a small light sport airplane and was flying between UT and CA at 12.5k ft and saw one of these pass 1,000ft below me not far outside of Reno. ATC didn’t call it so presumably they didn’t see it on radar. It was exactly as described, small, shiny, cylindrical, no wings, and fast. If I could gu…

(a) They are common, lots of stories. (b) Completely impossible to get good video about them. a & b => bs

Oddly enough, people used to say the same thing about gorillas. They thought people were just confusing the natives with monkeys, or making up stories about monsters.

https://listverse.com/2010/04/16/10-beasts-that-used-to-be-m...

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#173

Post by gher-shyu3i »

oceanplexian wrote: post #148
exporectomy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering how you estimate its speed and distance Wouldn't it look identical to a smaller, slower object closer to your aircraft?

It’s an educated guess from years of watching and avoiding other airplanes. The reason it drew my attention was the abnormal speed, then I focused in on it and realized it was a featureless cylinder.

How long ago did this take place?

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#175

Post by Izkata »

czbond wrote: post #142
soheil wrote: post #139

I'm so sick of the term UFO being applied to stuff like this. Even the pilot said it looked like a cruise missile but lo and behold the first conjecture in the article by the journalist is that it could be extraterrestrial and only at the end they say oh yeah it could also just be a military thing since you know there are a trillion military bases right under where it was flying over. I think we need a new term, mayb…

I think the term now in use is UAP - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

Downvoters - UAP is indeed a term used nowadays: https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/23...

> On Aug. 4, 2020, Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force (UAPTF). The Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the UAPTF.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#176

Post by bostonsre »

res0nat0r wrote: post #167
mike_d wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely zero chance a cruise missile would be fired without closing the airspace to civilian aircraft. The pilot was at 37,000 feet and said the object was above them. Commercial planes top out at about 42k feet and would have shown up on ADS-B. A U-2 flying at 60k would look like a long cylindrical object about the size of a cruise missile (in the same way a 747 looks small from the ground), and not show…

On the contrary, the USA has accidently dropped nuclear missiles from planes, and have experience all kinds of other incompetence over the decades. https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill...

There are quite a few more safeguards in place now to prevent accidentally letting a missile reach over 30k feet above US soil.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#177

Post by sjburt »

Joky wrote: post #156
mmahemoff wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you don't film the whole flight. I'm almost surprised it's not a requirement, given how cheap and easy it is now.

There is very little requirement on equipment to fly in the US, you don't even need a radio in the majority of the space (only when you approach towered airports and other busy / special areas). So we're far from requiring a camera :)

Sure but for what GA costs on a recurring basis, a small camera or two is such a negligible cost and is really valuable for learning.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#178

Post by libria »

rococode wrote: post #62
geocrasher wrote: post #8

I think the proper term here is "Unidentified Flying Object" for a reason. The pilot clearly said it looked like a cruise missile. The notion that "Unidentified = Alien" is rather far fetched. The acronym should be more accurately called "Undisclosed Flying Object".

We've really gotta adopt a new term for this stuff. It's fine to be pedantic and say "well 'UFO' doesn't actually mean aliens in the first place", but the acronym has clearly been co-opted by pop culture to be closely tied with aliens for decades now. Even a minor change like "UFOB" (which has been used by the USAF officially) would probably make a big difference. People will continue to say UFO to mean aliens, and t…

You're suggesting the media use a new, accurate term to avoid the "wow, aliens" sensationalism and voluntarily lose out on page views/ad clicks? Cool, who do you think will go first?

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#180

Post by scotth »

Judgmentality wrote: post #171
nabla9 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(a) They are common, lots of stories. (b) Completely impossible to get good video about them. a & b => bs

Oddly enough, people used to say the same thing about gorillas. They thought people were just confusing the natives with monkeys, or making up stories about monsters. https://listverse.com/2010/04/16/10-beasts-that-used-to-be-m...

Surely things have changed between then and now.

We're talking about visual phenomena, and we capture video constantly.

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